


Orpheus and His Lyre

by sunflowerbright



Series: Hotel California [15]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Depression, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 10:57:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/861302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerbright/pseuds/sunflowerbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Grantaire almost laughs, pressing his face against tickling curls, placing a kiss with the lightest of touches. He wants nothing more than to reassure Enjolras, wants to do everything, anything for him.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>But he’s run out of lies.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Orpheus and His Lyre

The tea in Musichetta’s cup has gone cold: she can feel the heat that had seeped into her hands earlier leaking out again, slowly, carefully, like the warmth had left the bodies of her boys when…

That’s a long time ago. She tries not to think about the years after.

“So,” Bossuet says. He’s not smiling, and that is an odd and unusual thing. Joly is not smiling either, though the smile has not been replaced by a frown yet, as so often happens. Instead he looks angry, and she remembers the man who wanted to fight for a better world. A man from eons ago, it seems. He’s still beside her today.

“So,” Joly mutters, eyes fixed on the table in front of them. She wonders what he’s seeing. Even after all these years (and it is many, with two lives in your head, even if most of them had died young. Too young), she sometimes has trouble discerning his mood when he gets like _this_ , when he’s actually withdrawn instead of his usual cheerful self, when he’s filled with the determination that drives almost all of them, instead of worrying about everything and everyone under the sun.

“So,” Musichetta leans forward towards Myriel. “We’ve lost this fight already, it would seem.”

The elderly professor – priest, father, whatever he is – looks older than he is. He looks tired and worn-out, but it is kindness in a world that is unkind that has left him so, not any unkindness from within. And he’s still kind. He’d welcomed them in with open arms and answered all of their questions.

“I am sorry that you see it that way,” Myriel says, slowly, carefully, weighting his words like every syllable is a valuable gem to be given away without harm. “Though I do understand why. The situation is… difficult. Frustrating, even.”

“How did you convince them to leave you alone?” Bossuet asks, voice unsure, as if the question really isn’t that important. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe they don’t want to be left alone.

“I regained my memories quite late,” Myriel answers. “I was already an old man when it happened. Furthermore, my life led to very little in the way of… testing. Ana-Maria seemed to think that I had already proven myself. And it is also important to note the… uncontrollable nature of Ana-Maria’s powers. Her target is often only one or two people: the other reincarnations are… baggage. Sometimes as a reward, the Recruit will have loved ones surrounding them, supporting them again. Sometimes it is a close enemy, someone whose life so intertwined with the Recruits that their souls… you could say they hitch a ride by mistake. Éponine is a good example: while she was not a main Recruit, her fate was still important enough to gain that status, once the original reincarnated life came back, and along came some of her own baggage. In the form of her parents, if my sources are correct.”

“So Éponine was not Ana-Maria’s intended… target, when she decided to bring us back?” Joly asks, voice skipping over the word ‘target’ like its disgusting, and it is, something twisting inside Musichetta at the very mention. A _target_. A thing. “But you’re saying she… gained that status?”

“Exactly,” Myriel nods. “It’s complicated, and my knowledge is limited. I am not certain how much control Ana-Maria has exactly over her own powers: certainly, there are people she would not bring back along with the original Recruits, if she could help it. But then other people close to the main Recruits will be important enough that they gain the status of Recruit, and these people are tested as well.”

“Right, ‘important’ enough,” Bossuet grits out: he looks angry, but he visibly calms down as Joly puts a hand on his shoulder. Musichetta has to stop herself from biting her nails or twitching in her seat. Or better yet stand up and go punch someone.

“Who was the… ‘targets’ this time around?” she asks instead, trying to focus on getting her head around this. “If we’re looking on it as a… main group, sort of. There’s all of us, from Nineteenth century France. But there’s a lot of us, and we didn’t even all know each other: we all have a connection in _some_ way, which is why we’re probably back, but who was the main targets?”

“Fantine was one,” Myriel says. “Ana-Maria met her when she was still a little girl, and decided to bring her back once she had met her fate. But she is the only one I am aware of: I am quite certain one of the fighters at your Barricade was a main target as well. Your actions there were certainly something that would draw her attention. My guess is it was your leader, or him and his two friends. But Fantine is the only one I know for certain.”

“Right,” Musichetta leans back again, placing her cold cup on the table. “With Fantine follows Cosette, with Cosette follows Valjean and Marius. I suppose you could say that the rest of us follow with Marius. Otherwise it is a bit of a huge coincidence, isn’t it, the daughter of one of Ana-Maria’s… chosen ones or whatever, marrying the friend of another chosen one.”

Myriel’s smile is soft. “Not necessarily. Valiant people tend to attract others of the same kind. It is not a huge mystery: often she has been where injustice was at its most powerful, or where the roar against it had turned deafening. And with Michael persuading a lot of us to his side, she cannot afford to be too picky about who she brings back. The number has to be large, if she must have any hope to win this fight.”

“Right, so she’s not just toying with our lives, she’s _carelessly_ toying with our lives,” Joly cuts in, voice dry. “Lovely.”

“I am sorry,” the elderly man turns and looks at Musichetta. “I wish I could tell you that this would be over soon. I wish I could tell you the secret to staying out of this: but though I have managed to maintain a neutral position in this war for more than twenty years now, I am still a part of this. And you have to be as well. Your fate’s has been tied, tangled in each other, and you need to realise that sooner rather than later. That doesn’t mean you have to be happy about it.”

“No,” Musichetta stands up from her chair. “It really doesn’t.”

 

*

 

When Grantaire wakes, he isn’t entirely sure that he has actually awoken, because he is back in his flat and Enjolras is kissing his way up to his ear, and okay, it’s very nice, but they’re sort of fighting right now, or at least Grantaire is pretty sure that they were fighting, though he can’t really recall what they were fighting about, and Enjolras’ body is a burning furnace behind him, not just in the usual, sexy way, more in the _‘good lord, is my boyfriend on fire’_ kind of way, and Grantaire is a little worried, especially because he… he can’t really move around to check.

His body feels slow and heavy, everything feels slow and heavy, his throat scratchy, his leg on fire, and he blinks and it’s like someone’s pulled wool over his eyes, everything’s all blurry and he’s not in his flat anymore, fuck, this is that goddamn cabin and… and is that Combeferre?

“… has a fever,” he hear someone that _isn’t_ Combeferre say, someone with a lighter, higher voice, it’s actually a voice he knows, he’s pretty sure that he knows it anyway, and it takes him at least ten seconds too long to realise that its Eponine and that he probably has a fever. Like she said.

And, okay, Eponine he can account for being there, in the Cabin of Repressed Feelings (he is so going to call it that from now on, he almost giggles just at the thought), but Combeferre must surely be a hallucination brought on by that fever they were talking about, which is why he forces himself to lift a weak arm and bump his fingers against said man’s chin.

Combeferre is cold as ice, or maybe Grantaire’s the one that’s just too warm. Curious.

“R?”

“Hello,” he says, or tries to. It comes out like _Heljkljdo,_ but Combeferre seems to have taken a course in gibberish, because he seems to understand.

“You have a very high fever, Grantaire,” he says, and wow, okay, it’s not like he hasn’t been subjected to it before, but Combeferre seriously has the _best_ bedside manner, even if he didn’t have any kind of talent for being a doctor in any other way, hospitals should hire him just to sit and talk to patients like that. Grantaire is pretty sure his voice alone can cure cancer, not to mention the flu.

“… is infected, and we’re going to have to… R, I need you to listen.”

“S’rry,” he mumbles. “You should work for a hospital.”

Combeferre tilts his head to the side. “I do, part-time. You know that.”

“I do?” _He does?_ Oh that’s right, he does.

Combeferre moves then, and everything is still blurry, but those blonde curls definitely belong to Enjolras. He’d recognize the man anywhere. He’d recognize the man if he was blind, and deaf and everything in-between. He wonders if they’d still been holding hands even after they were dead. He could ask Gabriel that. Gabriel would know. Because he killed them.

If Eponine is there, which he’s pretty sure she is (he may be wrong, he’s been wrong before, lots of times), then Gabriel should be as well, unless he’s dead or just walked away or got lost down the yellow brick road. He could ask him.

_What did killing me feel like?_

“We’re going to have to move you,” Combeferre keeps talking as Enjolras kneels down besides the cot Grantaire is on. He closes his eyes again, but with the force being it, he can practically _feel_ Enjolras’ worried frown, so it doesn’t really help.

The world is spinning, and he’s thinking _move me where?_ And then he remembers Cosette, but when he opens his mouth to say something, to remind them that they need to go get her, that it’s just a fever he has, she could be dying, she _needs them,_ no words comes out.

When he opens his eyes again he isn’t sure if minutes or hours has passed, but the only one in his line of sight is Enjolras, whose still sitting in the same spot, so it probably isn’t long, because Enjolras can never sit still for long, especially not when he’s really as worried as he looks now, and hey, Grantaire’s vision isn’t so blurry anymore, he can make out the lines on Enjolas’ face, the swirls of colour in his eyes, the blood on his shirt.

There is too much blood on his shirt.

“I think I’m dying,” Enjolras tells him, and Grantaire wakes up screaming.

He’s in a fucking hospital, and Eponine is jumping up from a chair beside him and there is a nurse rushing in, and only then does he _stop screaming_.

He’s in a hospital. A fucking hospital. He’s hooked up with an IV-drop, pins and needles in his arms, keeping him hydrated or whatever it is, and there is beeping and the disgusting smell of everything being too clean, everything but him, because he’s ill enough to warrant going to a hospital, and fuck, it’s hardly a month since he was here last, how is this his life, not even Bossuet has monthly visits to the hospital and he once fell into a newly-dug grave during a funeral.

“Grantaire, it’s okay,” Eponine tells him, and fuck it, she’s always been a good liar, hasn’t she, it’s almost genetic with that family, cheat and kick and fight to survive, anything to survive, and he has learned from them so well.

Or not well at all, if his current situation is any indicator of that.

Which it probably is.

“Where the _fuck_ am I?”

“In a hospital,” the nurse says.

“Well, no _fucking shit_ … I know you,” he stops and stares, because fuck it all, he knows this woman. “I _know_ you.”

The nurse frowns. “No, you don’t.”

But he does. He’d seen her, not in this life, but he’d seen her: she’d been in the Corinth, the damn wine-shop they so often frequented, and he’d been so drunk he could hardly stand, but he’d seen her.

“This is Fantine,” Eponine says then, her hand on his shoulder as if to restrain him, which is probably good because he’s shaking and sitting up, needles pulling uncomfortably at his skin. “Cosette’s mother.”

Right. Cosette’s mother. Cosette’s mother that died when Cosette was what, five years old? Ergo could not have been at the Corinth in late 1831.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I’m… so sorry. I guess I was…” he was hallucinating, he was seeing things, he was imagining everything just like always.

“Turns out when Gabriel came into my work the other day demanding I give him the location of one of our fail-safes, it was you two he was trying to get a hold of,” Fantine says then, smiling slightly at him. She looks kind. She looks like life has been tough.

She would, Grantaire figures. She would. Look like that. Life has been tough.

Both times around.

“How did I get here?” he asks then, pushing Eponine’s hand away as she tries to press him back against the pillow. If he leans back, he’ll fall asleep. He doesn’t want to sleep. He wants some answers. Dammit.

“Combeferre had built another fail-safe. He and Feuilly came to get us, right after we met up at the cabin. They managed to hit our location pretty precisely, actually.”

Well, that’s Combeferre for you. Four-eyed little perfectionist. Grantaire needs to hug and cry on him when he sees him again.

“So… they got us back. All of us?”

Eponine clenches her jaw. “You were very sick, Grantaire. As in, seriously sick. You were already weak after everything, then your wound got infected, you got a fever. I’m not talking run-of-the-mill fever, you could have died.”

Grantaire stares at her, and he thinks the feeling of dread now is nothing to hurting his leg: he wishes for the drowsiness of earlier to come back.

“We left without Cosette,” he realises.

“You could have _died!”_

“You _left her_ ,” he wants to be angry and shout at her, get mad at the others for _leaving Cosette behind,_ but that’s not what’s happening. “You left her _because of me_.”

“Grantaire, please don’t blame yourself, it wasn’t your decision and it wasn’t your fault, please, be angry at us, but don’t… we didn’t have a choice, the fail-safe wasn’t perfect and we would have been stuck there, and then we couldn’t have helped Cosette at all, and you would be dead.”

Her voice is filled with remorse, but that’s not good enough, it’s not enough, and he’s blinking away tears of his own, wondering how much exactly he’s been crying lately, how much they could measure. If it’s an ocean or just a lake.

“How long have I been out?”

“Around forty hours, counting the time it took to get you here,” Fantine says then, quietly, not wanting to interrupt but not wanting to leave the two of them alone while so clearly aggravated. Grantaire appreciates it: if Eponine stops being sad, she’ll get angry and then she’ll probably strangle him. “Your fever passed last night, but your body needed a lot more rest. It’s around noon now.”

“Enjolras has been here the whole time,” Eponine says then. “He hasn’t slept at all: Courfeyrac and Feuilly literally dragged him back home for some rest just two hours ago. He’s going to be so pissed he just barely missed you waking up,” there’s slight laughter in her voice, but Grantaire can’t bring himself to find any of this funny. Her smile falls, and she looks away again.

“Marius is missing,” she says. “And we don’t… I’m sorry, Grantaire.”

There is a glass of water on the night-stand beside Grantaire’s bed: he’s picked it up and flung it against the far-end wall before anyone else can react, watching it break into a million pieces.

More nurses come running in and give him something that calms him right back into sleep, and he’s thankful for the oblivion.

He wakes only briefly to be taken home, only he somehow gets to Enjolras’ place instead, which is weird, but he’s still too tired to really think about it. He merely passes out on the couch, which is a fold-out so it’s nicely big compared to the slim hospital-bed and the slim cot and the goddamn prison-cell.

At some point he wakes up and stumbles out to take a shower, peeling off the bandage slowly: its healed nicely enough; they’d gotten to the hospital too late for him to get stitches, so there’s going to be an ugly scar on his shin, but Grantaire can live with that. He has enough of them either way. He freezes up when he hears doors opening and closing, footsteps outside in the flat, and fuck, it must be Enjolras he _fucking lives here, why is he here, no go away, oh shit, this is his flat,_ but there is just rustling around and Grantaire stays hiding in the shower until it goes away again.

When he comes out there’s luke-warm soup and a pot of tea beside the couch and the sheets have been changed, and there’s a bag with some of his clothes and a sketchpad and pencils there, but Enjolras or whoever it was is nowhere to be seen. Grantaire drinks the soup despite having no appetite, knowing there would be hell to pay if he doesn’t, and when he falls back into bed, still exhausted, face pressed against soft pillows, they smell like Enjolras. He falls asleep enveloped in the faint echo of him.

The next time consciousness returns, Enjolras and Jehan are there, speaking in hushed voices. It’s disorientating, falling in and out of sleep like this, always waking up to something new. He can’t hear what they’re saying very well, but he does catch what sounds like his name, Jehan glancing back and freezing in place when he sees that Grantaire’s awake.

“R!” he says then, a gigantic smile breaking out over his face, and all of Jehan’s smiles (scarce as they can sometimes be), are big and bright, but this one doesn’t do much to mask the tiredness in his eyes. “How are you feeling?”

“Awake,” Grantaire replies, because that’s at least not a lie. He tries not to look at Enjolras, standing too close and too far away at the same time. Why the ever-loving fuck does it always feel like that anyway? It’s not supposed to feel like that, he doesn’t think. It’s not supposed to hurt this much.

“That’s something, at least,” Jehan mumbles, sitting down on the edge of the fold-out sofa. Grantaire sits up a little as well, the pillows behind him supporting. He feels weak as a kitten. He still doesn’t look at Enjolras.

“Have you found Cosette?” is the first thing he asks.

“We haven’t found her, no” Jehan says, and it’s odd, that Enjolras should be there, yet not be the one to explain this. But Grantaire is thankful that it is Jehan. “Technically. But we think we know where… Marius is looking for Cosette. With Valjean. We’re pretty sure.”

“You’re _pretty sure?”_

“Gabriel’s with them,” Jehan says. “The rest of us… we agreed it would be better if we didn’t keep splitting up. It’s too dangerous. We’re trying to make a strategy instead. We will get her back. We got you back.”

“Hallelujah,” Grantaire says, and Jehan flinches: he feels bad, because it really isn’t fair to take this out on Jehan.

“We’re trying,” Jehan says. “And, um… I mean. We know its Michael that has Cosette now. Or we’re pretty damn sure. That limits the possibilities a lot.”

“I am not comfortable with that knowledge at all,” Grantaire says. He may want to tell a thing or two to this Ana-Maria person, but Michael seems to be the slaughtering maniac out of the two. His chest tightens at the thought of his friend being in the clutches of that… thing. Whatever he is. “Wait. How can you be sure it’s Michael?”

“Because… as far as we know,” Jehan hesitates. “Michael is the only one who can make hallucinations, assume… other forms. And you all say it was Javert with you at the camp, but it couldn’t have been. The real Javert he’s… he died. Some time ago. He’s dead. He’s never been to the camp. At all.”

Grantaire takes a deep breath. “I don’t… so that wasn’t Javert? At the camp? He didn’t....”

“No. It was Michael. Most likely. Or someone working for him, trying to infiltrate the camp.”

“And how do you know that this Javert, the one that killed himself, is the real one? How can you be sure?”

“Valjean said that Javert was suicidal already,” Enjolras says. “They have history, as you well know. Apparently, he did not kill Javert at the Barricade, as we had previously thought. He let him go, and in conflict about his morals, Javert committed suicide.”

“He still killed him, as far as I know,” Grantaire snaps it out a little harshly, because he makes the mistake of _looking at Enjolras_. Which he’d been trying to avoid this entire time. He looks away again, closes his eyes. Valjean could be saying anything. Fantine could be saying anything. Apparently, they can’t even trust their own eyes right now.

“Clearly you have it under control,” he says then. “Or the flimsy excuse for control we’re using these days. Don’t say I didn’t warn you when we’re all dead. Again. Or, you know, don’t tell me in the next fucking life. I just hope there’ll be proper spaceships at least, next time.”

“Grantaire…”

“It’s okay, Jehan,” he mumbles, and he opens his eyes to see Enjolras walk forwards and place a hand gently on Jehan’s shoulder, murmuring something he can’t hear.

Jehan hesitates then, eyes flickering between Enjolras and Grantaire for a moment. Grantaire can see out of the corner of his eye that Enjolras is looking at him, tentatively almost. But Grantaire still doesn’t want to meet his gaze. “I’ll go,” he says. “See you later, okay?”

“It’s…” Grantaire wants to say it’s fine, but Jehan has already whisked out of the flat like he’s fleeing a crime scene, and then Enjolras is suddenly standing very close, staring at him.

“Move over?” he asks, and Grantaire feels almost like the other man had sneered at him, because usually the question would not come out like that, like Enjolras is more sure of getting a ‘no’ than a ‘yes’.

And Grantaire… he almost wishes he could say no. Because whatever happens now, it’s going to complicate things, when… it’s just going to hurt more. Later. When…

No, he’s kidding himself. It’s going to hurt no matter what. And currently, Enjolras is asking him softly, pleadingly, and he can’t say no.

He just can’t.

He moves over just a bit, and Enjolras crawls in, folding his arms around him, fitting his head under his chin and breathing hotly against his neck. His curls tickles Grantaire’s nose, but he ignores it.

He expects Enjolras to start talking, but there’s nothing, just… just fucking clinging, and it’s all he can do not to cling right back until one of them bends and breaks. It will happen, eventually. It always happens.

“You said you’d be careful,” Enjolras finally says then, mumbles against Grantaire’s skin, an accusation that pierces right through his heart, and he has to close his eyes in the face of it. “You promised.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t _ever_ … I’ve been so naïve. I was too unprepared, for everything, but seeing you on a hospital-bed, unconscious, white as a sheet, seeing you like that _again_ and that quickly after last time, I just couldn’t… I just _can’t_.”

“I’m really sorry.”

_“Fuck!”_

“I am.”

“Tell me you’re okay now. Tell me you’ll be okay.”

Grantaire almost laughs, pressing his face against tickling curls, placing a kiss with the lightest of touches. He wants nothing more than to reassure Enjolras, wants to do everything, anything for him.

But he’s run out of lies.

“I’ve never been okay.”

Enjolras breathes in deeply like Grantaire has just said the worst thing he could ever say, and Grantaire thinks, amidst the drinking and aggravating everyone and letting everyone down, amidst of all of that, this is the moment he has hated himself the most in.

He’s wrong. He’ll hate himself more later. For now this hurts like a thousand poison needles already.

“Tell me you’re not fucking _dying_.” Enjolras demands then, and reaches up to tug at Grantaire’s hair like he’s so wont to do, face still buried near his throat like the lies will seem more real if he can’t see Grantaire’s face.

That’s probably a sound plan.

“I’m not currently dying,” Grantaire informs him. “Aside from being a decaying organism that only lasts for like eighty years tops, give or take. Most likely take. You know what I’m like.”

“Grantaire…”

“Sorry. The fever’s gone, I can actually stand on my leg again, my head isn’t about to explode, my organs aren’t committing mutiny. I’m fine. Promise.” He almost winces at his last words, because clearly, he doesn’t keep his promises.

But he’s said something right, because Enjolras is pressing feather-light kisses to his collar-bones, and it’s making his knees all weak. Grantaire’s glad he’s lying down already. It’s very distracting.

“I’m going to chain you to me,” Enjolras whispers, nuzzling up his neck and Grantaire shivers. “We’re not going to leave each other’s sight at all, I don’t care if you have to go to the bathroom or boxing, we’ll figure something out. I can’t… we can’t… every time you turn the corner away from me something happens, every time, something hits and I _can’t deal with it_ , I can deal with everything, but I _can’t fucking deal with you being hurt_ , do you understand me? It’s too much, It’s too much, it’s… fuck, I just can’t.”

He’s being torn apart, he’s on fire, he’s ice-cold inside, his head is aching again, his jaw is aching because he’s grinding his teeth together so hard. Grantaire had once likened Enjolras to marble. He needs… he needs to… fuck. He can’t do this. It’s his turn. He needs to know the secret of turning to stone to do what is necessary.

He has to do this.

“Enjolras,” Grantaire says, and he has no idea how he gets the will-power to do so, but he pushes himself away, out of Enjolras’ tightening grip, sitting up against the back of the sofa. Enjolras gets up as well, sitting back on his heels, their knees touching. His hair isn’t tied back and it’s slightly dishevelled after he’d been lying down. His lips are red and full, eyes glinting in the faint light of the room. He looks like the unattainable dream he has always been.

“We have to break up,”

Grantaire’s voice is monotone, is neutral, is without judgment or despair.

Enjolras’ face however, isn’t.

“You…”

“We’re not any good for each other,” he continues. He needs a drink. He needs to stop himself. He has to fucking stop himself _right fucking now,_ because he is ruining everything, like always.

But this was inevitable. And he’d rather it be now. It has to be now. Because now they can both see again.

“ _We’re_ not any good for each other,” Enjolras nearly spits the words out. “What you mean is _you’re_ not any good for me.”

Grantaire winces, for a second, but its enough, Enjolras’ eyes glinting in sad triumph.

“We’ve been over this,” the other man says, angrily. “Grantaire, _I’ve told you_ , I love you…”

“ _Don’t say that_ ,” Grantaire shouts, even surprising himself with the volume of his voice, but the fear is a leaping beast in his chest, the fear is real and it is going to eat him alive, a bite each time Enjolras whispers words only one of them can actually believe in.

“But I do,” Enjolras says, his voice shaking slightly. “Whether you want me to or not. It’s not something you can stop. If you’re afraid of hurting me, know that you are hurting me much more by pulling away from me than you ever could by being with me.”

Grantaire snorts at that. “You don’t know me very well.”

“You’re wrong,” Enjolras sounds sure, _so sure_. It’s so tempting to believe him. “I see you more clearly than you see yourself. We all do. And this isn’t me trying to be condescending and take the high-ground or what you wish to call it, this is me trying to explain to you that it’s okay, that I hate that you hate yourself so much, but _I don’t see you that way_. I think you’re amazing and brave. When I say I love you, I’m not trivializing those words. I realise what they mean. I’m not mocking you. I’m not saying what I think you want to hear because of some kind of sentimentality. I don’t pity you. I respect you more than I can say, for all the reasons you don’t respect yourself. I can’t imagine getting through even a single day dealing with the things your mind does to you, but you do. When you think of yourself, I can’t imagine what you see, because you cannot possibly see the man I do and still think so ill of yourself. You simply can’t. And don’t say I’m the deluded one here. Don’t say I’m biased. Don’t _fucking_ start making decisions for the both of us because you’re scared I might get hurt, when I’m the one that has had to watch you bleed and has had to hold you not knowing if you’d ever wake up and look at me again!”

His voice rises with the last words, and Grantaire has to take a deep breath, has to stop himself from apologising and reaching out for the other man, touching him, reassuring him, because _he can do that_ , he could let his fingers run along Enjolras’ arm right now and kiss him, and it would be okay again.

Until the morning, when he’d have to shed the pretence one more time.

“I still think we should…” he can’t say it. Not again. Not when Enjolras is looking at him like that, is _daring him_ to make another argument. For once, Grantaire’s case feels so weak that he can hardly see it. It’s pathetically transparent. Enjolras will pick him apart word for word. But this isn’t some opinion ruled by the laws of debate. This is them. This is _Enjolras_. This is too important.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” he says then, grits the words out. “It’s my life. If I want out, I can want out. It’s not a relationship-decision then: it’s free agency. I don’t need to fill out a release-application for breaking up with someone. I wasn’t asking. I was telling.”

Enjolras is staring at him like Grantaire has just confessed to murder.

“Don’t do this,” he pleads, and fuck that is not okay. Grantaire can’t look at him: he’s looking down at his hands instead, folded in his lap.

“I’m sorry.” That’s the first truth he’s spoken tonight.

“Grantaire, you cannot just fucking do that because of your own self-hatred and think that that’s fucking okay. Tell me you’re doing this because you want out and not because of some fucking idiotic noble deed you think you’re doing, like a service to me, _because it’s not!”_ the last words are shouted, chipping at Grantaire’s resolve, chipping at everything.

“Dominos,” he says then. “I played dominos instead of helping. I said I would, said I’d rally the people, would go for you, because everyone else was busy. I told you to be easy, I told you to trust me. And then I played dominos instead.”

He can feel Enjolras looking at him. He wonders if its belief falling slowly away in the man’s eyes. He dares not look.

“Flyers,” he mumbles. “I was supposed to get them from the library, everyone was so busy. I borrowed a car, drove to the nearest bar and got so drunk I could hardly see straight.”

“Models. Factory-workers. I painted them, a lot, easy subjects, and you asked me to convince some of them to join the cause. I ended up spilling paint on this lovely woman’s skirt and got punched in the face by another. That one was entirely by purpose – the man had seen you, made remarks about you I didn’t… didn’t care for. That you wouldn’t have cared for either, but still. I shouldn’t have… anyway.”

“Grantaire…” Enjolras starts. He ignores him.

“Not getting hurt,” he continues, almost laughing now. “You mentioned that yourself. I promised you I wouldn’t get hurt. I promised I would be careful. As Eponine will testify, I’ve been acting as far from _careful_ as one can get without running around with a big target on their back.”

He wants to look up now. Wants to see Enjolras’ face for this last bit. But he can’t. He can’t move.

“The Barricade. I promised to stand with you. It was the least I could do. It was all I had ever wanted to do. Surely a life and death situation would grant me at least a moment of your time. It would be worth it. And I couldn’t. I made that promise only to myself, and it was so much easier to break. Somehow you’d all crept under my skin and I couldn’t get you out. So I drank myself into oblivion instead.”

He’s surprisingly not crying. He’d always imagined himself crying, the few times he dared to think of speaking the truth to Enjolras. To anyone. His heart is a storm, but his head feels calm.

“I should have gotten in front of you,” he looks up, and meets Enjolras’ eyes without flinching. “I should have tried at least. Tackled one of the soldiers. Caused a commotion. I could have. You would have escaped with your life. The sun would have touched your skin again, your hair. Your mother could have seen your face again. You would have lived to see the people finally rise. You may have even made it happen earlier. I should have done something. I didn’t.”

He’d expected Enjolras to be angry, but the man’s voice is calm as he speaks.

“I would not have,” he says. “I was the last one. I would have been alone after that. For all that you speak so highly of me, I am nothing without my friends,” he leans forward, slowly, hesitantly, stopping too close and too far away. Again. “I am nothing without you.”

“You’ve got that backwards,” Grantaire says.

“No,” is all Enjolras says, like it is a universal truth, like he has the right of it, hand reaching up and cupping Grantaire’s jaw, thumb stroking across the line of it. Grantaire doesn’t know what to say. It seems like they’ve reached a stalemate, and he doesn’t want Enjolras to stop touching him, doesn’t want him to stop looking at him like that, even though that’s what he had been aiming for.

And then whatever poor imitation of marble, of an actual shield against his emotions he’d put up, it _breaks_ and he nearly collapses forwards, into Enjolras arms, pressing his face into the man’s shirt, right over his heart, breathing in deeply.

He’s done it again, he can’t _fucking stick to his resolve_ , but Enjolras is running his hand up and down his back, the other stroking through his hair, whispering _‘it’s okay’_ , in his ear, and hadn’t they established that it isn’t, but he still doesn’t want him to stop, doesn’t ever want him to, shit, how did he think he would have coped if Enjolras had actually walked out right there, if he’d not been as stupidly stubborn if he had for once listened to the bullshit Grantaire spews, if he’d been any kind of a sensible human being?

He wouldn’t have survived. _He wouldn’t have._

And there comes the waterworks, and Grantaire feels pathetic and weak, but he can’t stop it. “Fuck, I’m so sorry,” he whispers into the dampening fabric of Enjolras’ shirt, holding back sobs. “ _Fuck, fuck,_ please don’t go, please _I’m so sorry, I never should have…”_

“You scared me,” Enjolras mumbles. “Don’t say that again if you don’t mean it. Please. Just don’t.”

“I know, I know, _I’m awful, fuck_.”

“You’re not awful,” Enjolras assures, and his voice sounds like he’s almost on the verge of crying as well, though he takes a deep breath and forces it back, and it’s still more than Grantaire feels like he can take. “You’re not. Hey,” he pulls gently at Grantaire’s shoulder, and he reluctantly moves back, meeting Enjolras’ eyes.

“If you want to talk about this more, we’ll do it in the morning, when we’re both more rested,” Enjolras says, and there’s a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, like he’s afraid that might actually happen. “You’re right you don’t need a reason to break up with me, but I am not okay with you breaking up with me against your own wishes, because you think it’ll keep me safer or happier, or whatever it is you come up with. I know you don’t mean it like that, but it’s pretty fucking disrespectful to me, not to mention hurtful. I don’t want to be without you, and if you still lo… if you still _care_ about me, then don’t. Okay?”

That’s… oh. That last bit.

Enjolras always tries to be so careful with his choice of words.

“You think I don’t love you anymore?” he’s stopped crying in actual shock, his voice rising an octave higher in surprise, because _what the hell._

“That’s not it,” Enjolras says, defensively, and Grantaire knows he’s hit the nail on its head. Or almost on its head. “I just… you didn’t... I was… I thought, the way you reacted, I was afraid that the return of your memories…” he stops, looking pained. Grantaire doesn’t say anything.

“Mabeuf said to me that he kept your memories from you,” Enjolras finally begins again, after a silence that was all too long. “Because of… well in part, at least, because of me. Because he felt that I was toxic to you. He felt like I held you down, held you back from the man you could be, this amazing, extraordinary man… and I was… I was afraid that he was right, and that, with your memories back, you’d realised it too.”

There’s a branch from the tree outside the flat that keeps tapping against the window as it moves with the wind. For a long moment – a very long moment – it is all that can be heard in the room.

“Grantaire?” Enjolras looks scared. Enjolras looks fucking scared. Enjolras looks fucking scared, _because he thinks Grantaire might not love him anymore._

“That is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard,” he doesn’t _quite_ shout, but his voice is pretty loud. “That is… you didn’t… he didn’t… I am going to punch Mabeuf _in the face_.”

Enjolras still looks like a lost puppy. He also looks vaguely like he wants to laugh, but is in too much pain to do so.

“R…”

“And _you!”_ He almost points an accusing finger at Enjolras. Almost. It would be too dramatic. He is very tempted though. “For fucks sake, you’re supposed to be fucking smart, and I knew it took you literally about a hundred years to get that I’m in love with you, but it should be pretty fucking obvious by now after you’ve had it spelled out for you. I would do _anything_ for you, I’d fly into the sun or, or, follow you into the deepest darkest pits of hell or whatever the hell all that shit people always say is, I’d kiss the ground you walked on if that’s what you wanted, and yet you still fucking doubt that I love you?!”

Enjolras tilts his head to the side. “Frustrating, isn’t it? When people discredit what you say about them, start making assumptions.”

“I’m…” all the anger leaves him as quickly as it had come. He stares almost sheepishly at Enjolras. The dried tears on his face are itching slightly. God, he must look a mess, red and puffy eyes, tear-streaks like faint tattoos marking how much of a fucking mess he really is. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” he frowns. “You’re not the cause of my problems, Enjolras.”

“If you say so,” he reaches for him again, but Grantaire bats his hand away gently.

“No, not if I say so,” his mouth is dry and his heart is beating too fast, but he… Enjolras looks too much like he knows he himself looks like whenever… well. It’s too close to the face he saw in the mirror after that horrible, awful night when his feelings for the man had first been brought up.

“You don’t get it. I’m… I’m not anything, without you. I mean, here now, I have… I have other things, and I did back then as well, I did all these things and people complimented me or found me interesting for some goddamn reason, but it didn’t matter. It’s like an old photograph, black and white, and it looks nice and everything, but it’s not… it’s not relevant, anymore, is it? And back then I was just empty. I didn’t even have a… a name, for what it was, this… things inside of me, it didn’t have a proper name back then, so I just thought… it’s just the way I am. I’m just… lacking. But when I was with you, it was like… everything was clear again. I was someone once more. I was a real, whole person. You don’t… we weren’t even together. You hardly spared me the thought of the day: but just seeing you, just knowing you were there. It was enough. It made me as close to a better man as I have ever become, and it may be obsessive and unhealthy, and maybe we should be thanking some non-existent deity in heaven for the fact that today there are therapists and Eponine, and I’m at least 0.5% more adjusted than I was back then, but I love you and I will always love you, no matter what. You’re not a silly crush, or an infatuation, or a creepy obsession bound by the laws of lust and wanting what we can’t have. You’re everything to me, and if you asked me to pack up my stuff and leave tomorrow so you never had to lay eyes on me again, you’d still be the best thing in my life. When we’re all dead again, I’ll still love you. When the sun, goes out I’ll still love you. If there is one single constant in this world, there is that. It’s the only promise I can ever make to you that I can assure you will never be broken.”

He stops speaking, out of breath, because… because there aren’t any more words, are there? He’s said it now, _all of it_ , and it’s the most terrifying and exhilarating experience ever.

“Thank-you,” Enjolras says. “ _Thank-you,”_ and sounds breathless and first and foremost _happy_ and Grantaire thinks _‘I did that’_ , before he’s being kissed until his head starts spinning, nails raking over whatever skin they can find, warm hands moving over and under clothes. He’s being pushed back on the sofa-bed, and straddled, which is always nice, but Enjolras seems like he wants to just keep kissing, and honestly, Grantaire is completely on board with that as well, even if he’s building up a headache after the tension and the shouting and the crying. Enjolras must sense or guess that though, because he pulls away again, and reaches over for the glass on the small coffee-table, making Grantaire sit up enough so that he can drink it. While Enjolras is still straddling him. Which is seriously nice, did he mention?

“Sorry, I’m a mess,” he mumbles as he puts the now empty glass away, Enjolras leaning in close almost immediately as soon as its gone.

“I love you,” he says. “You’re allowed to be a mess around me.” he kisses him. Grantaire doesn’t kiss back, and Enjolras pulls away quickly again.

There’s a ringing in his ears, and Enjolras starts frowning.

“Grantaire…”

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I just really can’t… maybe you shouldn’t say that.”

Enjolras looks away. “It upsets you that much?”

“I’m… upset is the wrong word to use.”

“But you’re not happy about it.”

Fuck. Fuck he’s not. It’s everything he’s ever wanted and _he can’t even be happy about it!_

“God, there aren’t words for how fucked up this is,” he mumbles, pulling at his own hair in frustration. “I’m sorry, I’m… I just…”

“You don’t believe it,” Enjolras looks back at him now, looking resigned in a way that makes Grantaire’s heart hurt. “You think I’ve gotten some false impression of you, and that’s who I’m saying it to, and not the real, actual you. You think if I could see what you were actually like, I’d be running away screaming.”

He’s throwing some of Grantaire’s own words back at him, and it hurts more than he’d expected it to.

“I’m terrified of it,” he admits.

“Where did it go wrong?” Enjolras asks then. “When did… if this had been before your memories, would your response have been different? I realise that you’d possibly still have trouble believing it, but would it still have made you happy, even the slightest bit, if I’d told you before… before your memories?”

Grantaire needs a moment to think on that, because it’s drawing a line between the two lives that isn’t really there, and he needs to ignore the taste of brandy at the back of his throat and the burn of opium in his veins, and remember a time when those were just odd dreams to be forgotten come morning. He looks for a little while, but then he does find an answer.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, I… I wouldn’t have been… so _me_ about it.” and then. “Please don’t blame yourself. I’d hate it if you…”

Enjolras leans forwards and presses their foreheads together, drawing his arms around Grantaire’s shoulders, closing his eyes.  

“I should have told you sooner,” he mumbles. “I should have told you from the start how much you mean to me. I should have told you that when you concentrate on something, you scrunch your eyebrows in a way I’ll be describing as cute until my deathbed, no matter how much you despair of it. I should have told you that your paintings makes me want to revisit every bad opinion I’ve ever had on art and whether or not it could actually have an effect people to a strong degree. I should have told you that I have dreams about your eyes and nightmares about them staring open without blinking, cold and… and gone. I should have told you, but I didn’t, because I was more comfortable hiding it all. Because I feel wrong-footed if I don’t have at least three back-up plans, but as soon as I feel like I’ve made one that can help me make you as happy as you deserve, you go and set the whole thing on fire. And that scares me. And it took me too long to realise that it doesn’t scare me half as much as those nightmares, or the close reality of them.”

It’s just word. Pretty and heartfelt, but just words. Nothing more, Grantaire would say. Grantaire could say.

But Enjolras has always had a gift with words.

“Try it again,” he whispers, daringly.

“I love you,” Enjolras says, and doesn’t give him time to freak out, kisses him instead, deep and bone-searing, hot and wanting. When he pulls back, he shifts pillows and pulls Grantaire back down to lie beside him, tucking closer to bury his face in his hair, meaning that his own long locks hit Grantaire in the face. He bats them away.

“Get a hair-cut,” he mumbles. Enjolras smiles.

“You like my hair.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. You like everything about me, apparently. You said so yourself,” his voice is slightly teasing, but also hovering just around unsure, as if he’s as desperate for confirmation in this as Grantaire is, and fucking hell, no, that’s not on.

“I do,” he admits, breathlessly, and the sound Enjolras makes at that is strangely arousing. Which Enjolras notices as well, it seems. That part may have something to do with Grantaire pressing himself even closer.

“We’re not having sex tonight, you just got released from the hospital, and also, you’re an emotional mess and I’m close behind, if not worse than you right now. So no sex.”

Grantaire pouts. “I take it back. I don’t like you.”

“You do.”

“No, I don’t. You look like a seventeen-year old girl, and your hair is too long.”

“I don’t look like a seventeen-year old girl, and my hair is not too long. And neither of those are negative things.”

“Your hair gets everywhere.”

Enjolras pinches his side slightly. “I’m very relieved that you still want to have sex with me, but the answer is still no.”

“Okay. But later?”

Enjolras looks thoughtful, hand stroking over Grantaire’s back. “How do you do this?” he asks. “A minute ago you were crying all over me – which I _don’t mind,_ don’t give me that look. I mean, I mind very much that you’re crying, I don’t want you to cry, but you should always use me as a comfort-blanket when you cry. I want to be there and hold you, if it helps in any way.”

“It does,” Grantaire admits, reluctantly, but… but Enjolras looks like he needs to hear it. So he obliges.

“But yeah, you were breaking up with me not an hour ago and now you’re teasing me, and I’m not sure how you’re doing it.”

“You want me to explain to the robot how feelings work?”

“Yes that… what did you just call me??”

Grantaire can’t help but laugh at Enjolras’ reaction, short and sweet, and its only when it ends that he realises Enjolras is staring at him.

As in, really staring.

“I don’t _actually_ think you’re a robot,” Grantaire mumbles, slowly, because maybe he was a bit hurt by that, only it’s not a hurt look on his face, or even a confused, disgruntled one. It’s just very, very… happy. “Um. Talk to me… sugar?”

“You should always be smiling,” Enjolras says then, almost as if he isn’t talking to Grantaire, but more to himself, like how he’ll mumble quietly when he’s all scheming for the greater good. “I wish I could always make you smile.”

He’s not blushing, oh fucking hell, he’s blushing. “Um. Thanks.”

Enjolras smirks a little bit, lifting his hand to rest it just under Grantaire’s ear, touching the smooth curve of his jaw. “And you’re _never_ to call me sugar again.”

“Snookie-bear?”

“My name, Grantaire, use my name.”

He smiles again. “But do you want me to moan it, or scream it?”

“ _Grantaire_ ,” Enjolras laughs in surprise.

“No, that’s _my_ name.”

Enjolras is still smiling as he moves even closer, legs touching under the sheets. “How do you do it?” he whispers.

Grantaire hesitates for a second. “I’m used to it. Emotions all over the place. Things affect me too much. It’s life. You’re staring at a light-bulb every day and you need to rest your eyes. I have to stare at the sun. Resting my eyes aren’t enough.”

Enjolras moves a black curl behind Grantaire’s ear. “I’d put out the sun for you, if I could,” he says and Grantaire wants to cry again, because he finds that he almost believes him.

 

*

_“…Your fate’s has been tied, tangled in each other, and you need to realise that sooner rather than later. That doesn’t mean you have to be happy about it.”_

Musichetta stops the recording on her phone, looking up at her friend beside her.

Enjolras is still looking out of the window: she wonders what he sees. It’s night outside, and they’re huddled in his kitchen, keeping quiet so to not wake Grantaire, whose still sleeping out the fever and everything else in the living-room.

“We can’t go on like this,” he says then, quietly, which is unusual for Enjolras, but there it is. “If everything we’ve heard is true – and considering the multitude of different sources, we have to assume it is – then Ana-Maria is as bad as Michael. She’s as… controlling, as manipulative…” he has to stop himself to lower his voice again, though the anger doesn’t fade. “We can’t let her threat us like her own personal army of re-usable _parts,_ or whatever the hell she thinks we are. I don’t know who she thinks she is, but she can’t.”

“We’ll talk to the others tomorrow?”

He nods. “Yeah. Yeah I’m calling a meeting, tomorrow night. We’re going to have to do something about this.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've graduated yaaaaay. And started at my new work, which is going really, really well. This update is so early in the day, and maybe a little bit rushed (so forgive any mistakes) because my graduation ceremony is in an hour and there are celebrations all weekend (no, literally all weekend, I have no idea how I am going to have time to sleep). I'm finally done with this course from hell, and I want to thank everyone of you for making my day a little brighter with your comments and kudos and general enthusiasm for this fic, thank-you so much, I have needed that so much these last few months. You are all delightful and awesome. 
> 
> Next part should be up in a week or so.


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